Failbetter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| failbetter.com | |
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| Discipline | Fiction, Poetry and Art |
| Language | English |
| Abbreviated title | failbetter |
| Publisher (country) | failbetter LLC (USA) |
| Publication history | 2000 to present |
| Website | www.failbetter.com |
failbetter is a quarterly online literary magazine.
Founded in 2000 by bookstore vagabonds Thom Didato and David McLendon, the magazine originally evolved from a Brooklyn-based reading series that featured many writers from the Gordon Lish school of writing. McLendon left failbetter in 2003 to pursue his own writing. Andrew Day, who had helped design the initial issues, then came back to the fold as the magazine's Managing Editor. Subsequently, failbetter's staff of editors, consultants and readers grew.
Since its inception, failbetter has been online quarterly magazine published in the spirit of a traditional literary journal--dedicated to featuring quality fiction, poetry and artwork. In the span of just 5 years, failbetter (whose name was inspired by Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.") quickly garnered its readership by publishing up-and-coming writers like Sam Lipsyte, Heidi Julavits, Myla Goldberg, and the late Amanda Davis. Additionally, the magazine interviewed many of the best literary voices of the day, including Paul Auster, Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, Nick Hornby, Pam Houston, Billy Collins, Jonathan Lethem, Marie Ponsot, George Saunders, Anne Tyler and others. The magazine was also fortunate to interview back-to-back Pulitzer winners Michael Chabon and Richard Russo months before each won the award.
Initially, the traditional literary establishment was somewhat suspect of the merit of online literary magazines (see literary magazines). failbetter is one of many quality online literary publications that have successfully broken that barrier. The magazine was one of the first online publications to be recognized by such annual print award anthologies as the Pushcart Prize as well as The Best American Poetry series.
As of the summer of 2006 the average readership was 50,000 per issue.
